IIFA Diary: Little sparkle on awards night

Every year at IIFA, people crib about how badly organised the event is but somehow the glitz and glamour of the awards always makes you forget all these unpleasant issues.

This time however, the awards function was stretched so thin and had such few interesting moments that at the end of it all, you felt even more irritated.

Security arrangements at the venue were extremely tight and this led to more than one misunderstanding. Also, guests were left without food or water for the most part of the five-hour-long award show, which ended in the wee hours of the morning.

Believe me, if you have to listen to Shatrughan Sinha go on and on about the unity in the film industry, your patience will run out. And he wasn’t even there to receive an award, merely to give one.

That apart, the awards ceremony did have some spark, especially in the earlier part, when the inimitable Salman Khan sauntered on to the stage and danced in his own unique style.

Joining him were buddies Govinda and Anil Kapoor and just watching the three of them dancing on stage brought back a wave of nostalgia for all those David Dhawan movies they used to act in. The chemistry on stage was crackling.

Another touching moment was when Hrithik Roshan handed over the Lifetime Achievement trophy to his grandfather — director and producer J Omprakash — who proudly declared “my biggest achievement is that people recognise me as Hrithik Roshan’s grandfather”.

The hosts for the night — Riteish Deshmukh, Boman Irani and Lara Dutta — didn’t miss any opportunity to poke fun at their friends in the industry, not even sparing Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. Riteish even managed a better impression of Khan as Rizwan Khan in “My Name is Khan” than Khan himself.